Dead, dead, dead
by Ripper
Summary: Well, there's this Angel and this Demon, see, sometime in the late 18th century. And then there's a boy about to be hanged and a conspiracy and lots of naughty bits and killing and stuff...


"You have had a fair, patient and impartial trail and you have no one to blame for the result but yourself, and no reasonable regrets therefore, save from your own misconduct. I ask you to prepare to meet the result of your trial, which I now announce to you. It is the sentence of the law that you, Alexander Jackson, be taken from this place to the jail of this county, that you be therein kept in close custody by the chief officer thereof, until the 10th day of November, A. D., 1796, and that between the hours of 10 o'clock in the forenoon, and 2 o'clock of the afternoon of said day, you be hung by the neck until you be dead, dead, dead. And may God have mercy on your soul."  
  
Head down, hands shackled before him, the young man in the dock said nothing.  
  
There was spontaneous applause from the less restrained members of the gentry; some even went so far as to cheer in a most indecorous manner. The more venerable individuals, of course, contented themselves with grave nodding of heads and the occasional muttered "Quite so," and "Indeed". Lord Hastingthwaite-Ffoulkstonshire - on whose property the poor girl had been found- attempted "Hear, hear!" but was quickly shushed. The groundlings, of course, were uncontrollable- shouting, jostling and squealing like livestock as the convicted was hauled through their midst. The Right-Honourable magistrate slammed the gavel down, declaring the court adjourned.  
  
"Please be upstanding," a clerk called shrilly, "For the Right-Honourable Judge Mathers. All rise!" The Right-Honourable Richard Mathers winced and passed his papers to an overly helpful aide. "Yes, yes, take them to my office. Oh, do go on. And I don't wish to be disturbed." Watching the youth manhandled from the dock and past the staring eyes and whispering mouths of the eager onlookers, the judge sighed. He generally felt uneasy with himself for days after pronouncing the death sentence upon some poor unfortunate, regardless of how much they "deserved" it. Dead, dead, dead...to speak those words seemed so final, so unequivocal. It filled him with an unpleasantly pleasant sense of power.   
  
Grunting, he shifted his not-inconsequential bulk from the bench and lumbered from the room. The aide hovered by his side like a gnat in an ill-fitting suit, chattering excitedly. "Good heavens M'Lud I've never seen a man hanged before have you? Oh of course you have is it as terrible as they say it is? My uncle was hanged once you know. Well I say hanged once because they didn't finish the job. It was the most extraordinarily remarkable thing I've ever heard in all my born days I don't mind telling you that M'Lud  
really-" The aide broke off as the dark wood of the door slammed against his nose. "I'll just sort your papers for you shall I then M'Lud? Right-o," he said as he cheerfully skittered away. On the far side of the door, the Right Honourable Richard Mathers winced as the whiskey burnt a hole in his throat, and crossed himself.  
  
*****  
  
"My arse hurts."  
"Hsst!"  
"I mean it. I ought to send the plans for these benches to the boys Below; I think they'd be quite interested."  
"Not so loud."  
"I wasn't being loud. I think I was being remarkably quiet about it, seeing as I'm evidently going to spend the rest of eternity with a quadrangular backside." Crowley grinned toothily at an alarmed young lady eavesdropping nearby, who squeaked and hid behind her fan. "Hm. No place for a lady, this." Beside him, Aziraphale was in pain -albeit of an entirely different sort to that of the demon's. "Why are they taking so *long*?" he muttered, breathing hard.   
  
"Oh, you know how it is. Probably want to decide how best to do away with the lad, for entertainment value and suchlike," said Crowley lazily. "Red-hot poker up the jacksy, eyes torn out by ravenous hawks, drawn-and-quartered...now there's something you don't see much of nowadays, do you?" He yawned widely; the young lady *and* her mother stared at his canines. "Pity. Now it's all 'humane', apparently. Hah! Well, it's certainly very *human*; I'll give them that, even-" Crowley broke off, glancing beside him. The angel was horribly pale, hands gripping the head of his cane until the knucklebones looked close to bursting through the skin. "That is, of course, uh, presuming that they're completely inept and moronic and decide to execu...punish the boy. Which they won't," added Crowley with a bright, brittle smile.  
  
Aziraphale closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "Azi." Crowley reached out to grasp Aziraphale's arm, then pulled his fingers back in surprise. Instead of the softness he was accustomed to, Aziraphale was unsettlingly tense, shivering as though fevered. Alarmed, Crowley leaned closer, pulling down his darkened spectacles and staring into the angel's face. "Aziraphale," he said, more forcefully this time.   
  
"*Sir*, do you *mind*?" came a voice close by: the young lady's father. "We are *waiting* upon a most *serious* decision, of which I *hope* you grasp the *magnitude*." Loaded with emphasis, it was a voice obviously in the habit of addressing people who were compelled to reply "Yes, sir," and "Sorry, Sir," (and, occasionally, "Yes, Oh Emperor, I *have* been a very naughty slave girl. Spank me!"). Under ordinary circumstances Crowley might have oiled all over the poor bugger and bid adieu once in possession of his purse and youngest daughter. Today, the harried demon simply pulled his glasses further down his nose and shot the unfortunate man a Look.   
  
Let us retreat some fifty years into the past: Henry Lionel Norterage is six years old, very bored, and walking on his father's estate looking for small things to kill. As he pokes at a huge, leafy bush with a length of fence paling, something stirs inside it. Intrigued, he prods the bush again. There it is again: a sort of dry slithering and scraping. Henry drops to all fours and pushes his way into the dense gorse, ignoring the sharp twigs scraping at his arms, and manages to enter halfway before sticking fast. As he struggles back against the catching branches, he hears the same soft scratching, far closer this time, and looks up in alarm. In the dim, filtered light inside the bush he can barely make out a long, dark shape coming towards him. Terrified, Henry freezes to the spot, body rigid, eyes fixed on the graceful dancing form. The snake stops a few inches from his nose; an elderly adder, stout and lazy. It flicks its tongue at him a few times. Henry does not remember that adders hardly ever attack; he does not remember that at this age they're so damn slow you could outrun them with a stack of bricks tied to your ankles while jogging through custard. All he can think about are the eyes- sickly gold orbs shining in the dark...now we return to a draughty courtroom in England, where once again Henry Lionel Norterage is transfixed by the eyes of something ancient. Reptilian. Hungry.  
  
"Tsk," tsked Crowley as the man scarpered from the courtroom most comprehensively, wife and daughter in tow. He turned back to Aziraphale. "I was joking before, you daft celestial bugger. Don't be so stupid. And don't worry." Placing a hand on Aziraphale's shoulder, he glanced anxiously around. He doubted any of the assembled masses had noticed the previous incident, but the two of them were nevertheless garnering a number of curious stares. Hardly surprising, really. They made an unusual pair- Crowley in an exquisitely tailored black velvet and silk suit (accessorised with spectacles of smoked glass), Aziraphale in a rather more sedate -not to mention dishevelled- ensemble. Crowley licked his lips. "Oh come on, Azi, just try to-"   
  
A tear ran down Aziraphale's cheek, and the rest of the room ceased to exist. Pulling him close, Crowley wiped the offending drop away. "I *said* don't be stupid, and what do you go and do?" he whispered with fierce tenderness. "You great bloody righteous fairy. Where's my angel, eh? Where's my flaming-sword-wielding-scourge-of-the-unholy-oh-come-all-ye-faithful-halo-boy? There now. That's better," Crowley chuckled throatily as Aziraphale gave the tiniest of smiles. "Now stop being a jackass, or I'll really give you something to cry about."  
  
"I'm sorry, dear," said Aziraphale, resting his head against Crowley's. "But if they- they kill him, it'll be all my..." He broke off, biting his lip and gazing with terrible yearning towards the figure in the dock. The young man stood straight in his tattered finery, oblivious to the leering crowds. His head was down, dark hair loose from its ties and spilling over his face, hiding the bruises that marred his alabaster skin. The hands shackled before him were soft and white and painfully young, his wrists showing the ugly red weals left by the bonds. Crowley rolled his eyes, but before he could threaten the angel with a swift spiritual kick to the head, the clerks and aides and ushers were thrown into a skitter of confusion.  
  
"All rise! All rise for the Right Honourable Richard Mathers! All rise!" The court stirred excitedly as the Magistrate swept into the room, robes flowing like dark water behind him. Crowley wished they had sat amongst the lower set; they smelled a lot worse than the nobs (which was an achievement in itself), but at least they wouldn't look askance at two gentlemen getting a little intimate. Well, not so much, and if they did, who cared? It probably wouldn't comfort Aziraphale much, but it might stop Crowley being so bloody bored.   
  
After a cautious glance at the angel, he sent a Thought in the direction of a young woman two rows down. Henrietta Bagwallace, engaged to Lord Potterdon since October this year, paused abruptly in her embroidery, face flushed, bosom heaving above her tightly laced bodice. Crowley grinned, and set another Thought slinking over to the girl sitting primly beside Miss Bagwallace. A long, slow smile spread across the face of Angelina Robotham, fresh from St Catherine's Finishing School and quite untutored in the ways of the world. Reaching out, she shyly took the hand of her companion, who started briefly before meeting the smile with one of her own. Crowley smirked happily at Aziraphale as the two girls hurried outside "for some air, it is so *frightfully* stuffy in here, Mummy", Lady Bagwallace smiling benignly after them. The angel did not respond. "Fine," said Crowley sulkily. "I'll just- ooh, hang about. They're very nearly ready, I think."   
  
And so they were. The R.O. Judge Mathers had finally sorted his papers out, and rapped his gavel smartly for silence. A blanket of stillness fell upon the court as the crowd waited eagerly for the verdict. Crowley felt Aziraphale stiffen beside him, and took his hand gently, the demon wincing as surprisingly strong fingers curled desperately around his own. "You have had a fair, patient and impartial trial," rumbled the judge, and Crowley's heart ached in sympathy with his lover's. Poor Azi, he thought. Poor, stupid, sweet angel. It's going to kill him.  
  
"...dead, dead, dead. And may God have mercy on your soul." The hand Crowley held went suddenly limp, and he looked fearfully at Aziraphale. "Azi?" The angel's face was blank, cold, dead. Some idiot near them muttered, "I should say so!" at the verdict, then was silent as Crowley whipped around, teeth bared. Aziraphale made a tiny sound of anguish and, rage forgotten, Crowley leaned in close to him. The two watched intently as Alex was dragged from the courtroom- a forlorn figure, looking terribly young and alone amongst the grasping, screaming mob of the groundlings. For the first time, Crowley was glad they were seated with the nobility. Below them, a fat grocer who hurled a piece of refuse at the young man collapsed with a squeal as his bad knee -which had been fine for some years now- mysteriously flared back in a burst of sharp, silver pain. Crowley raised his eyebrows mildly at Aziraphale, but said nothing. The crowd surged back in the wake left by Alex and his escorts, and they were lost to sight.  
  
*****  
  
"Angel?"   
  
Aziraphale sat motionless, eyes fixed ahead in a hard, glacial stare. Crowley shifted anxiously. "Azi, they've all gone." Indeed, they were alone in the drafty, high-ceilinged courtroom, cavernous and echoing without the crowds. The angel remained still. Bereft of people, the room still stank of sweat, fear and -to Crowley-, the hot and angry traces of a Mob that had had years to seep into the seats, the walls, the floor, the soul of the building. He shivered.  
  
"Come on, angel. Let's go home."   
  
Aziraphale gave a quiet shuddering sigh/sob, and rose unsteadily to his feet, leaning heavily on his walking stick. Crowley was at his side instantly, the reassuring arm around the angel's waist, the gentle and comforting voice in his ear. "Shh, now. I know. There was nothing you could do. Home, eh?" He stepped back hurriedly as Aziraphale's eyes met his; twin slivers of blue steel, burning in a way he hadn't seen for a thousand years. "Don't", said the angel softly, "talk to me as though I were a child, Crowley. And don't lie to me."   
  
Taken aback, the demon nodded mutely, and Aziraphale's face softened. "Oh, I'm sorry, dear. You were only trying to help, I know, but I just..." He trailed off as Crowley pulled him closer. There was near silence for a good twenty seconds, broken only by the occasional muffled -but not displeased- sigh. Crowley pulled back, licking his lips with a very red, very pointed, very *long* tongue. "Better?" he asked innocently as they strolled from the courtroom, arms linked. The angel smiled. "A little." He spoke thoughtfully, brow furrowed in a manner that made Crowley a little apprehensive. "But I'll feel a good deal more so once we get Alex back."   
  
Crowley's face was a Study in 'What The Fuck?'. "Get him...back? Aziraphale, he's...you're not going to try and- you're a bad, bad angel!" The Bad, Bad Angel smiled. "Absolutely not. I have no idea where you get these slanderous ideas from, Crowley dearest, but I do *not* appreciate the insinuation that I would do anything contrary to the instructions of Above."  
  
"Aziraphale." The demon stopped dead, holding the aforementioned at arm's length. "You. Cannot. Bring. Him. Back. It's in the Rules. A court of Man has rightfully convicted him. Admittedly, he's not really to blame, but close enough for Above to look askance at any interference. And explaining the...*circumstances* to Them will mean explaining Us, which will get us all into trouble and hardly do the boy a great deal of good."  
  
Aziraphale simply chuckled and continued walking, out into the milky sunlight of late afternoon. "Angel!" Crowley skittered alongside him. To a keen observer, it might appear that his features had become a little distorted: the face thinner, the teeth sharper, the hands longer. Fortunately, the few deplorable specimens of humanity idling outside the courtroom were anything and everything but observant. "Angel, we can't! You can't, and no matter how much I l-" Crowley hastily amended the choice of words, "No matter how much I might want to help the boy, I cannot bring him back from the dead!"  
  
Aziraphale gave him a decidedly un-angelic grin. "Correct me if I'm wrong, dearest, but he isn't dead yet." 


End file.
